This critical thinking approach to American government challenges students to evaluate the quality of democracy in America today within a unique framework that offers a holistic view of our system.

This unique text challenges students to think critically about American government and politics through the use of two compelling organizational themes. The first theme, “Using the Democracy Standard,” asks students to evaluate the health and vitality of American democracy today against a democratic ideal that is carefully defined in the first chapter, and revisited at the beginning and end of each subsequent chapter. The text's second theme, “Using the Framework,” offers students a tool for examining the political process at a variety of levels–from structural factors to political linkages, government institutions, and government policies–to help them consider how the interactions of these factors affect what government does (or doesn’t) do.  Both themes are revisited in each chapter, as well as woven throughout the narrative, and highlighted in new marginal critical thinking questions that challenge students to consider the impact of governmental policies and processes on democracy, and vice-versa.

The ninth edition of this best-selling text will be updated throughout with the results of the 2008 Presidential and Congressional election results and the latest political issues and events, as well as deeper discussions of social and economic policy and political parties and participation.

Edward S. Greenberg is a professor of political science and the director of the Political and Economic Change Program in the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  He is author or coauthor of several books, including The Struggle for Democracy, The American Political System, and Workplace Democracy.  Greenberg has been the recipient of three major grants from the National Science Foundation and two from the National Institutes of Health, and is currently engaged in a study, funded by NIH, that examines the effect of corporate restructuring on employees, including their mental and physical health and their social and political outlooks.

Ben Page is the Scott Fulcher Professor of Decision Making in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University.  He is one of the nation’s leading students of American public opinion, and his landmark book, The Rational Public, won the Converse Award from the American Political Science Association in recognition of its singular contributions to the discipline.  His new book, The Foreign Policy Disconnect, uses longitudinal survey data to show that the American People and their leaders are not always on the same page. '

I.'